Mufti Disclaims Blame for Riots As Commission Ends Secret Evidence Sessions

Charging that it was unnatural and illogical to try to erect two National homes in Palestine based on mutual opposition and hostility the Grand Mufti yesterday completed his testimony-giving before the Inquiry Commission which sat longer than usual in order to permit the Moslem leader to finish. The Commission, which has been hearing the Mufti’s evidence in the privacy of his own home will return today to the regular court hearings.

The cross-examination of the Mufti by Sir Boyd Merriman, Jewish counsel, bore mainly on the activities of the societies formed for the defense for the Moslem holy places. Sir Boyd’s questions were phrased to show that thees societies were engaged in secret activities which played a part in the events leading up to the August riots. Preedy, government counsel, questioned the Mufti quite briefly. In the ten minutes he used he reminded the witness of the British offer in 1923 to from an Arab legislative council and an Arab agency, both of which the Arabs had declined.

The Grand Mufti’s reluctance to give direct answers made it impossible for Merriman to get from him a definite admission of his guilt in the incitement leading up to the riots. Far from admitting his complicity the Mufti detailed his attempts to pacify the enraged mobs. He claimed that he was responsible for the action of the members of the Supreme Moslem Council

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(Continued from Page 1) at Beersheba and Gaza where they calmed the excited Arabs. Here Merriman’s cross-examination brought out the fact that the calming of the Arabs at Beersheba and Gaza was due to the issuance of an appeal by the Mufti of Tiberias, whose action was influenced by the Jewis of the vicinity who also issued a proclamation.

Declaring that the Moslem leaders of Haifa had earned the gratitude of the government for their pacifying work the Mufti went into a lengthy discourse on the plundering of a small mosque in the Zichron Moshe quarter. Two policemen, he said, were stationed there but at the time of the Jewish attack one had left his post and another was asleep.

Flatly denying that he was the author of a letter urging the people of Nablus to come to Jerusalem to fight the Mufit charged that the letter was an obvious forgery because of the illiterate Arabic in which it was written.

Every attempt to turn the hearing into a mass meeting was made by the Arab dignitary. He harangued the Commission about British pledges to the Arabs which he claims were not kept and concluded by outlining the King’s message as read by Sir Herbert Samuel, first High Commissioner, on his arrival in Palestine in July 1920.

The closing session of the hearing was again private with the press barred, The available reports of the sittings came only from the Arab counsel, the others refusing to divulge the proceedings.